Strive for “simple,” part 1: File a flight plan

When I started working in organizational communication and change, this was the best (and most frustrating) advice I got:

“Simply, tell the story.”

The comma matters, because the advice was two-fold: Avoid complication, yes. But for your reader’s sake, get over the love of your own prose and move quickly to the useful, the meaningful, the valuable. Practically and syntactically, that phrase changed me as a comms professional.

It taught me to edit more carefully, ditching the arch, academic word choices that made me a “star student” but did nothing to help develop my voice. I had no concept of how to turn complicated, often unpleasant messages into a “story” to which readers could relate positively, and which could, ideally, motivate them to take action. Dual charges to get it right (technically accurate, forthright and clear) and also to make it feel good, often didn’t wash.

(Try, for example, writing a feel-good story about a pension plan elimination. Benefits communicators do it every day, and I’m fortunate to know many who do it very, very well.)

Frequently, the mistake I’d make would be to start “too big, too quickly.” Under the time pressure that comes with working in professional services, and (at the time) lacking the trust and confidence in my own voice to choose a direction and start exploring it, I’d do something like this:

• Speed-read any background information that seemed relevant (retaining “less than enough” of it);
• Draw connections between obscure data points and dense technical verbiage that seemed to make sense to me;
• Divine a set of reasonable core messages out of what I’d pieced together in my brain and “decided” that I understood about the audiences and stakeholders involved; and
• Maybe test them with a colleague or on a smaller deliverable to validate them … but more often than not, just press forward, synthesizing them into a draft that, often, missed the mark by a country mile.

“Nicely written,” one might say, “but I’m not sure what the author of this draft wants me to do with all this information.”

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Tip #1: File a valid flight plan before takeoff

I think of those false starts today as taking the “Harrier approach.”

The famous Harrier jump jet is a class of aircraft which, like its namesake, is capable of lifting off almost vertically (with little or no runway); flies fast and, often, low to the ground; maneuvers side-to-side more efficiently than most other planes; and can hover, almost helicopter-like, over a point in space thanks to powerful, pivoting thrusters.

Like a Harrier, faced with a vague writing objective I’d launch straight up; hover around a Big, Scary Objective (BSO) that was nearly always crafted by someone else and was therefore ambiguous at first; choose an angle of attack, and start writing … and writing, and writing.

Eventually, I’d write myself into a corner, running out of information to convey or running short of the understanding required to know where to go next. Like the Harrier, I’d then swing a few degrees to one side or the other, view my objective from a different angle, and keep writing.

Big mistake.

So many words, so many different angles … none of it cohesive, or all that compelling.

If I was lucky, I’d have knocked a few holes in the BSO … but with so much time lost that when I looked at my work in progress, it would hardly seem to have been worthwhile. (And, I’d be exhausted.)

I was writing without a “flight plan.”

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What to watch out for

So, how do you know when you’re writing without a flight plan? Ask yourself these questions.

If your answers give you anything but a green light in the cockpit (a preliminary answer that you feel good about), pause and think before you start writing.

• Who is your audience?
  • Depending on what you’re writing and why, the depth to which you need to understand your audience could vary a bit. And over time, the early assumptions you make about your target audience will probably be validated or disproved. So, remain flexible. But as a starting point, try to come up with a single statement to use as a reference for the person or group who will read what you are writing, and will hopefully take the desired action (described below). Here are a few examples:
    • “I’m writing for first-year college students, many of whom are away from home for an extended period for the first time in their lives.”
    • “I’m writing for certified public accountants. They’re accustomed to highly technical language and lots of detail … but they’re busy, so I’d like this to be less dense and more conversational.”
    • “I’m writing for employees of a private company. They need to read and understand this material so they can make a choice, by a specified deadline, which will affect their families’ finances next year.”
• What is the goal of the piece of writing: for example, is it meant to inform? Persuade? Build rapport?
  • Answers should be clear, concrete, and summarizable in a word or two, max.)
• Do you have a quantifiable objective for the piece? What is it? A number of people who need to read, click, sign up, share, etc.? A target word count?
  • Particularly in the “first draft” stage, your objective might not be numerical, or easily measured.
  • Put the question to yourself another way, then: Do you know what “done” looks like for this draft, and what will indicate to you when you have achieved that?
  • Don’t let this one hang you up as you start out. Instead, park it in the back of your mind and let it remind you that your reader’s time is valuable, and their motivation to act, even more so.
• What is the action for your reader to take, and how are you adding a call to that action (CTA)?
  • Even simple, somewhat passive actions (like “Think about this”) are OK here. Not everything needs to push a reader to buy, or subscribe, or vote.
  • But, everything you write should lead logically, in big or small ways, to your chosen CTA.
  • My CTA to the reader for this piece, in case you’re curious, is “Think about these ideas, and come back next week for the next tip!”).

Got a target audience, goal, objective and CTA in mind? You’ve got a great start at a flight plan.

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For now, hide the Harrier keys, keep your plan handy, and get to writing! See you soon.